A recent periodical published an editorial that is distressing (to me). The author predicted that the use of commas and apostrophes would fade away during the next 50 (or less) years. With ever-increasing use of the Internet, e-mail, and text messaging, the written language has been and will continue to be watered down, abbreviated, and bastardized to quite informal standards (read: no standards), the likes of which we have not seen since, as a species, we were preliterate. Even now, the gap between the structured formality of the written word and the laxness of the spoken word in civilized society has widened considerably. We see ample evidence of this everywhere, and the illiteracy rate in this technologically advanced country is also shockingly high. While we could long debate the many reasons why these social and educational conditions exist and are evolving into what appears to be further linguistic entropy, it is alarming to reflect on how such informality, for example, might affect dictators and transcriptionists of medical information and other vital information. Perhaps, as in the past, changes in language usage will come about so slowly that no one but purists and ideologues will notice, but if we extrapolate trends from the rapid advancement of global electronic communication ability to the development of global language, we may see an effervescent destructuring of grammatical rules and "good" English. Proper language usage will continue to exist only because it is practiced by those who genuinely have an affinity for effectiveness, clarity, and correctness. It does take a certain amount of enlightened intellect to adhere to correctness in the face of the persistent cultural dumbing-down of language skills; otherwise, swift deterioration is usually the result. As is said in many contexts, "Use it or lose it" applies also to the rules of language.
How many of us can remember the rules? Let's start with the parts of speech. How many are there? Do you remember learning this in 2nd, 3rd, or 4th grade? There are eight parts of speech: Noun, pronoun, verb/verbal, adverb, adjective, interjection, preposition, and conjunction. Conjunctions are further subdivided into three types: Coordinating, subordinating, and correlative.
A coordinating conjunction is used in a compound sentence. A compound sentence is composed of two independent clauses (sentences that can stand on their own) hooked together by a coordinating conjunction and requiring a comma before the coordinating conjunction. Coordinating conjunctions are easily remembered using the mnemonic (a word trick to help memory) FANBOYS, where F is for, A is and, N is nor, B is but, O is or, Y is yet, and S is so.
Here is an example of a compound sentence with proper punctuation (a comma) in front of the coordinating conjunction: "The red fox came to the edge of the road, and he stopped to look for oncoming traffic."
I'd like to continue with an explanation of subordinating conjunctions, but first I'd like to say a word about phrases and clauses in general. Some word combinations in sentences are called phrases. Phrases do not contain both subjects and predicates. Phrases are subdivided into noun phrases (e.g., "The tall, dark-haired, mysterious man") and verb or adverbial phrases (e.g., "should have gone to work") or prepositional phrases (e.g., "in the morning."). Prepositional phrases usually function as adverbs or adjectives. Unlike phrases, clauses contain both subjects and predicates. Some clauses are, in fact, complete sentences.
Don't let subjects and predictates scare you. A subject is nothing more than a noun (person, place, or thing), and a predicate is nothing more than what happens to the person, place, or thing. In some sentences, the subject and predicate can each be as short as one word (e.g., "Jane cried."). "Jane" is the subject, and "cried" is the predicate. Why did Jane cry? Perhaps it is because she is mourning the decay of correctly structured language in our culture. The following sentence is more typical in length: "The hungry children ate everything except the kitchen sink." Here the word "children" is the subject ("hungry" is the adjective that helps describe the children), and "ate" is the verb. "Ate everything except the kitchen sink" is the entire predicate. It tells what the subject did.
Sometimes verbs do not describe action but instead describe conditions. These are called linking verbs because they link subjects to words that describe them or rename them. Sentences with linking verbs can also, however, be divided into subject and predicate. An example of a sentence with a linking verb is as follows: "The captain of our football team was my brother." "The captain of our football team" is the subject, "was" is the linking verb, and "was my brother" is the predicate. Here the linking verb does not describe an action but, rather, describes a condition. Some sentences can be very complicated, but these are examples of basic patterns that will help in understanding more complex sentences if you plan to spend weekends diagramming sentences.
An independent clause is a complete sentence containing a subject and predicate. More than one independent clause can be joined together by a coordinating conjunction to form a compound sentence (as previously mentioned). A dependent clause, however, contains a subject and verb but cannot stand alone as a sentence. Dependent clauses begin with subordinating conjunctions such as after, although, as, because, before, even though, if, since, unless, when, and while. Subordinating conjunctions connect clauses of unequal importance, and the subordinating conjunction appears at the beginning or in the middle of a sentence. Since a dependent clause waits for its fulfillment from another part of the whole sentence, it cannot stand alone. For example, if I said to you, "If you study this grammar lesson with curiosity," and just stopped there, you would naturally wonder, "Yeah, so? Then what?" You are waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. "If you study this grammar lesson with curiosity, you will become rich and famous." It could happen.
Another kind of dependent clause begins with a relative pronoun such as who, which, or that. These are known as relative clauses, and they can also occur in the middle of a sentence. For example, "I know a man who has six toes" demonstrates a relative clause ("who has six toes").
Any sentence that contains one single independent clause is a simple sentence and requires no punctuation other than the period (full stop) at the end. If a sentence contains multiple subjects and one verb, it is still a simple sentence (e.g., "The white count and amylase were normal on admission but were rapidly deteriorating." This is a simple sentence with two subjects and two verbs, not requiring punctuation except for the period at the end.
In my work as a trainer of medical transcriptionists, most of the errors I see in grammar and punctuation usage cluster around just a few (but important) concepts:
1. Recognizing and correctly punctuating a compound sentence;
2. Recognizing and correctly punctuating an opening prepositional or adverbial phrase;
3. Recognizing the "dual" use of a conjunctive adverb and how to punctuate it according to its job in the sentence;
4. Recognizing and resolving comma splices and run-on sentences.
We will take up the thread tomorrow.
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